Developed by Typhoon and published by 505 Games, Journey to the Savage Planet: Employee of the Month Edition was originally released for the Google Stadia platform. Considering the fact that we all know how successful Google Stadia was as a platform, it was unfortunately shut down due to ‘unforeseen circumstances’ and thanks to that, Journey to the Savage Planet: Employee of the Month Edition is now available to us on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S as well. This enhanced edition comes packed to the brim with DLCs, enhanced visual fidelity, and more for the game. This is our review of Journey to the Savage Planet in which we explore a beautiful hostile planet and kick some pufferbirds around.
In Journey to the Savage Planet, you are an employee of Kindred Aerospace, a space company that is responsible for exploring space and finding new planets for humanity to live on. As part of its Pioneer Program, you arrive (crash-land) on a never-before-explored planet called AR-Y 26 and upon arrival, things change dramatically when you find a strange tower that shows this particular planet is not as lifeless as your preliminary scans showed. Upon this discovery, you are given new instructions from the weird head of the program Martin Tweed that he wants you to explore the planet and keep him updated. From there, you are left on your own with a wacky AI to guide you through the adventure, do what your employer says, find fuel, and get off the planet with your heart still beating.
Your crashed ship called Javelin Habitat comes equipped with everything you need from tons of TVs for you to see random ads to a fabricator that can craft new items and upgrades for you. AR-Y 26 is teaming with different resources and you can use those for your own use as well. At the start of the game, you release your robot cartographers that keep roaming around the planet looking for new resources and update your journal according to their findings. You can later visit these locations and discover them yourself or even collect their samples if you have to. While some of the gadgets and upgrades are vital, most are optional and they only make your life easier in the game but they are not required for in-game progress.
You have tons of gadgets and upgrades that you can craft for yourself. Some upgrades will allow you to progress further in the main story such as the grappling hook or the jetpack while some of these will just make your life easier such as extending your storage capacity for resources or increasing the effectiveness of your visor that scans the environment around you. The resources are scattered all over the planet and you will need plenty of exploration if you want to craft all of the gadgets and upgrades. Some of the upgrades also assist you in handling the local resources as well, for example, you cannot safely pick up Blight Bombs, an explosive plant that grows on the planet until you craft the Blight Bomb Stabilizer. Most of the upgrades really make the game more fun and enjoyable because you can really tap the potential of everything around you with these upgrades and gadgets.
The planet of ARY-Y 26 is not exactly a tourist spot and both the flora and fauna in the game are out to kill you. As you explore the planet, you will come face-to-face with some really cute creatures like the Pufferbirds or some really vicious ones like the Meat Vortex who eat these Pufferbirds. The design of both flora and fauna is absolutely insane and they fit so well into the universe of the game. At certain places of the game, you will fight some really boss battles as well, and depending on how good you are with jumping around, dodging, and using the resources you have, you can defeat them accordingly. Each location in the game presents you with new challenges and puzzles to solve. The puzzles in the game are mostly just looking around for paths and having the right gadgets with you and they are not too complex. Nothing in the game really hinders your exploration or missions unless you are missing a key gadget and you have to grind some resources for it. Other than that, you are just exploring at your own pace, solving primary or secondary quests, completing science experiments and just looking around for resources.
Since your primary goal in the game is exploration, it is extremely rewarding as well. There are tons of areas in the game that you can visit on your own because the main missions or even the side missions only allow you to visit certain locations. The whole planet is filled with hidden resources, puzzle rooms, and more that you can find, explore and collect the resources within. You can use some of these resources to increase your personal stats as well such as finding Golden Goo allows you to increase your health and stamina despite it being toxic. Similarly, there are certain plants that give you useful items like bombs or health. Each plant, creature, and biome looks completely unique and different from each other which is why Journey to the Savage Planet is such an amazing game when it comes to its overall design. The areas look unique and they offer a lot of levels for exploration.
The areas range from green forest-like areas to deep volcanic caves, each offering a new challenge and creatures to fight. The game world feels extremely alive teaming with flora and fauna that you can fight or use to your advantage. If you need a breather from all of this, you can use the alien technology to quickly travel back to your Javelin Habitat to rest, watch some ads, complete your paperwork, and craft some upgrades. Upon your arrival at the Javelin Habitat, all of your resources are deposited automatically for safekeeping. If you die outside in the world, all of your collected resources are left in the same spot and you have to go back and collect them. For scientific purposes, you will also scan everything that comes in your way including bosses, other creatures, and flora even if they kill them. There were certain instances in the game when I was trying my best to scan incoming predators in order to complete my collection rather than killing them.
Journey to the Savage Planet was already a beautiful game but the Employee of the Month Edition takes it to another level thanks to higher resolution textures, 60 frames gameplay, and other bonuses as well. Playing the game in 4K makes it just gorgeous to look at especially in areas where there are plenty of colors. Journey to the Savage Planet is no doubt a colorful game and playing it on a 4K screen in 4K is just pure visual candy. The sound design of the game is also pretty good as you will hear the soundtrack dynamically change according to the in-game scenarios. Since there is a little bit of platforming in the game as well, the controls are pretty crisp and it is enjoyable to swing from one grappling point to another. The game gives you a lot of movement freedom and you can make your very own grappling points by using a special plant.
One missed opportunity here is again the lack of use of the advanced features of the DualSense controller. For this review, we played Journey to the Savage Planet – Employee of the Month Edition on PS5 and unfortunately, the game does not use any of DualSense’s advanced features. There is plenty of shooting in the game however there is no use of Adaptive Triggers or any sort of Haptic Feedback in the game. The Employee of the Month Edition also brings the Hot Garbage DLC to the game which adds another area to the base game however compared to the base game, it just falls short on every aspect that makes the base game great. It is good that this DLC comes as a bundle because, like the name, it is not something that you should look forward to jumping into.
Final Verdict:
You probably would have heard it earlier as well but Journey to the Savage Planet: Employee of the Month Edition is the definitive way to experience this amazing title. The game really shines on the PS5 thanks to its 4K visuals and silky smooth 60 FPS gameplay. The game looked beautiful even before but thanks to the visual fidelity improvements, the game now looks even prettier. Couple this with solid gameplay mechanics, puzzle solving, exploration, and a dark take on humor and you have a brilliant open-world adventure that very few similar games can deliver. Loaded with even more bizarre ads, Journey to the Savage Planet: Employee of the Month Edition should be on your must-play list even if you played the original game because it packs enough new content to make it a worthwhile investment. If you already own the base game, you will be getting it as a free update anyway so all you need to do is update your game and jump back in it.
Final Score: 9.0/10
